The Team
The Lead Professional is Coral Milburn-Curtis, MSc (Oxon)
Coral is from Oxford, England. After teaching in Sheffield, Harlow, South Africa and Magdalen College Oxford she took over the headship of the country's top primary school, leading it and two other primary schools for 10 years.
During that time she served as a member and leader on a number of panels for the Department of Education and the Qualifications & Curriculum Authority. As an OFSTED and an HMC school inspector, she specialised in the inspection of maths, science and ICT in primary schools.
Representing the local authority, she has been a Threshold Assessment adviser, a workforce re-modelling consultant and a Newly Qualified Teacher consultant.
Coral is the author of 'How to Protect Your Child From Bullies'
.
As an accredited provider for the Young, Gifted and Talented (YG&T) initiative, she designed, coordinated and implemented online, blended and face to face courses for gifted children, delivering them at the University of Oxford and the University of Warwick.
Coral is an Associate Fellow of the University of Warwick, a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford, and is the lead professional on a number of e-learning and face to face projects for gifted children, based at the University of Warwick and the University of Oxford.
Dr Sarah Dauncey is an English literature academic and consultant in e-learning and is committed to harnessing technology to extend and deepen the educational experience of children and young people.
She studied English literature at the University of Warwick as an undergraduate and postgraduate and was awarded her PhD in 2004. Her research interests include modernist narratives; literary fiction and theory; ethics; and the relationship between science and literature. She is currently writing a monograph on forensic science and twentieth-century fiction. She has written articles on a diverse range of novelists (such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, and Patricia Cornwell) and thinkers (such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Derrida, and Giorgio Agamben) and has presented papers at conferences across the country. Most recently, she took part in the Battle of Ideas organised by the Institute of Ideas.
In addition to pursuing literary research, she has designed and developed virtual learning environments to support and stimulate gifted and talented learners. She established and ran two online communities for the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY)—an Online Reading Group and Creative Writing Forum— which each had over 1000 members. In 2006, NAGTY commissioned her to write three papers on the value of e-learning and this led her to pursue e-pedagogy in greater depth. She currently works as an independent consultant. Amongst her clients are, IGGY, YG&T Learner Academy, Villiers Park, and the Birmingham Book Festival.
Dr Richard Beare is a senior research fellow at the University of Warwick and an expert in astronomy.
He has specialised in astronomy education, especially the use of robotic telescopes and mathematical modelling using spreadsheets.
He is a prolific writer of scientific and mathematical articles.
Dr Beare has kindly helped to develop the course on astronomy and philosophy.
Jen Oakton BA(QTS) Hons. Educational Studies with English, MA(Open) in Primary Education
Jen Oakton lives in Northamptonshire, England.
She graduated from the University of Warwick with a first class honours degree and qualified teacher status in 1996. She then worked as a class teacher in primary schools, taking on whole-school responsibility for literacy, drama, and gifted & talented children. During this time Jen also completed her Masters degree in Primary Education.
Jen left teaching to work for the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) as part of the team developing assessments for primary schools across England and Wales. She also worked with assessment experts across the world to develop an international reading test (PiRLS) taking primary responsibility for its electronic aspect.
Having developed an interest in the use of ICT within primary education, Jen moved into educational software publishing, working for the highly respected Sherston Software for several years as an educational author and project editor.
Jen is a freelance writer and the course creator for a number of e-learning projects provided for this programme.
Visiting Academics
Cressida Ryan is the Classics Outreach Officer at the University of Oxford.
She completed a BA and MPhil in Classics at Cambridge before turning to school-teaching, in Essex and Cambridge.
She has subsequently started a PhD on Oedipus at Colonus in the eighteenth century at Nottingham, which is close to completion.
Her research interests include Greek tragedy (particularly reception and Sophocles), Neo-Latin, and Greek philosophy.
She has published a range of articles, and is presently co-editing a volume on heroes for Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Cressida is a visiting academic on our Classics courses.
Dr Emma Park studied Classical Literature and Philosophy at University College, Oxford. Her main research interests are in the interaction between philosophy and literature in the works of Plato and the Roman materialist poet, Lucretius. She also holds a Classics BA (first class) and MSt (distinction) from Oxford.
Emma enjoys sharing her love of Classics and has taught it in a variety of contexts. From 2007-2008 she was the Classics Fellow at Marlboro College, Vermont, where she taught Latin, Greek and Classical Literature and Philosophy courses to undergraduates.
In her spare time, Emma is an editor and contributor with the Oxford-based graduate journal, the Oxonian Review. She also enjoys playing chamber music on the flute and recorder, and learning modern languages.
Geraldine McCaughrean was born in 1951 and brought up in North London. She studied at Christ Church College of Education, Canterbury and worked in a London publishing house for 10 years before becoming a full-time writer in 1988. She has written over 120 books, 50 short plays for schools, and a radio play.
Her adult novels include Fires’ Astonishment (1990) and The Ideal Wife (1997), but she is best-known for her children’s books. She writes for children of all ages, from first readers, picture books, and younger children’s books, to children’s novels, which include A Little Lower than the Angels (1987), Gold Dust (1993) and Not the End of the World (2004), each of which have won the Whitbread Children’s Book Award, making her the only writer to have won this award three times.
Geraldine McCaughrean has also written several collections of stories, including bible stories and fairy tales. She specialises in the retelling of classic tales such as The Canterbury Tales (1984), The Odyssey (1993), Moby Dick(1996) and El Cid (1989) and of myths and legends from around the world. These books include The Orchard Book of Greek Myths (1992) and The Orchard Book of Roman Myths (1999).
Geraldine McCaughrean lives in Berkshire. Her book, Not the End of the World, is currently being adapted for the stage. White Darkness(2005), was shortlisted for the 2005 Whitbread Children's Book Award. In 2005, she was chosen to write the official sequel to J. M. Barrie'sPeter Pan. Peter Pan in Scarlet was published in 2006.
Learning Community Education Support Team
Colleagues from the University of Oxford, who have helped us to develop and deliver our gifted programme over the past year:
Mark Curtis; Exeter College, Hannah Dingwall; St Hugh's College, Kassi Jackson; Lady Margaret Hall , Hannah Jenner; St Anne’s College, Dominic Jones; Somerville College, Georgina Longley; Corpus Christi, Will Moir; Exeter College , Dr Llewellyn Morgan; Brasenose College , Chris Noon; Christ Church College , Lizzie Sandis; Faculty of Classics , Anthony Smith, Corpus Christi, Lorna Stevenson; Faculty of Science , Katherine Watson; Merton College, Emma Wyndham-Blake ; Faculty of Classics
Learning Community Strategy Team
Daniel Jessop
Coral Milburn-Curtis
Contact:
Lead Professional: Coral Milburn-Curtis
Academic Office:
Oakenstone House
Ferris Court
Sibford Feris
Oxon OX15 5QR, UK
Telephone: 00 44 (0)1865 589582
Click here to see the courses.
If you would like to be notified about future courses and projects, please send an email to:
c.milburn-curtis@warwick.ac.uk with the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.
Our programme is open to all children around the world, who are well-motivated, with a thirst for learning. Children are referred by their schools or their parents.
I want to thank you so much for spotting [my daughter] as a bright spark; for helping her along especially in creative writing and for giving me the confidence to put her forward [for scholarship], knowing your confidence in her ability. Your skill in educating gifted and talented children is fantastic, and you have given her the joy of achieving, which I believe will never leave her. Thank you so much for your infinite kindness and commitment to her and her education; it will stand her in good stead for the rest of her life. You have given her confidence in her own ability and joy in creative writing; I think the first novel wont be far off !! Susie C-A
